


Sleeping at Last

by Airy (hn209486)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, listened to saturn by sleeping at last while writing this, twisted the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hn209486/pseuds/Airy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being apart for three years will change people, but in some cases it can actually bring people back together. In this case, that's only proven true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping at Last

Korra had always fascinated her.

 

At first it had been with distaste.   
  
It was hard to not feel distasteful for a woman who captured the eye of the man you were dating. It was even harder not to hate her when you found out the two of them kissed, that she was girl on the other end of Mako’s cheating. She was the avatar, and Asami was just another average girl—or so she had thought at the time.   
  
This had all changed, however.

Asami had started to see Korra in a different light. It was after they had both fallen out with Mako. It was after the two bonded over crude jokes and giggles behind the man back. It was after Asami started being the first to step forward and say that she was going to go with Korra somewhere, help her with a mission, help her find the air benders. It was even after she kneeled in front of the avatar’s wheelchair, and painfully told her that she would be there for her.   
  
It wasn’t until Korra had left, really.   
  
Suddenly there was an absence. An absence in Asami’s life. Korra was such a large personality, and it had pained Asami to see it broken down. She would have travelled with her to the northern water tribe in a second if Korra had asked, but Korra had wanted to go alone. Asami could understand that. She had lost a lot too.   
  
So much started to change in her life, and the other woman wasn’t there to see it. Asami wasn’t bitter, no, but simply lonely. Korra had, somewhere down the road, became her best friend.   
  
And a part of her felt guilty. She had said she would be there for Korra, but she couldn’t do that halfway across the world.

~

It was all so rushed the day that Korra came back.   
  
Asami had known that it would be all-different. A lot could change over three years, and maybe that loyalty had been ridiculous. Maybe she should have just moved on. Her company was growing the way she had always hoped it to, and she had enough suitors that had approached her, and so many things had changed about her, so many things that she barely felt like herself. 

But one thing had not changed. She had said those words. She had promised to be there for Korra.   
  
She had never thought that being there for her would be so hard, though. She never thought that it would bring thoughts of what she wanted to do to that… to that… Asami couldn’t even bring herself to think of her as a tyrant.   
  
Kuvira was just a woman who had hurt the woman she loved.   
  
Asami didn’t feel like she could breath now.   
  
There had been a time when she had felt peaceful on Air Temple Island. When she hadn’t felt like her chest was tightening, like she couldn’t breath. Republic cities lights twinkled in the distance, and she vaguely remembered that they had felt like a rushed blur as she drove towards the lake, towards the island. The phone had rang in the middle of the night, waking her up with a jolt in her small one person apartment that felt too small.   
  
“Korra.” That was all Asami had needed to here. She hadn’t even changed out of her pajama bottoms.   
  
Frazzle haired and the light refracting off her face so that the shadows under her eyes seemed to expand across her entire features, green eyes resting on the figure. They had carefully positioned Korra in her old room, and what had once been brightly lit and decorated in blues and whites only seemed to feel desolate.   
  
Asami began to wonder if maybe it was Korra that had brought the light with her, not the decorations.   
  
The avatar was curled in her bed, trembling in the exhausted sleep she had fallen into. The blankets had been tossed off, though Asami was sure that Tenzin had carefully tucked the other woman in. Bruises ringed the dark skin on her wrists and ankles, and bruises were blooming across one cheekbone and her forehead, marring what had always been such pristine conditions to Asami’s eyes. Not that the woman hadn’t seen Korra get her fair share of bruises. The avatar had never been delicate.   
  
Tenzin’s words echoed hollowly in her ears,  _“Kuvira challenged her… but she couldn’t beat her. She was too strong and she’s still unable to control the avatar state… Jinora says there’s more behind it than just this battle, but she was exhausted too.”_

Asami’s fists clenched.   
  
 _I would take on Kuvira myself. I want to… I want to…_

Her hands went slack again, and the burning in her eyes made the dark haired woman hastily wipes away the water fighting past her eyelids.   
  
A few shaky steps forward. Bolin was in trouble. Mako was in the city. Asami felt her chest tighten. What had happened to their group in the past three years?   
  
The woman slowly lowered herself down onto the edge of Korra’s bed, watching her face twitch. Nightmares were obviously still bothering her, and Asami could remember how many times Korra had awoken with a scream, lashing out, after the battle with Zaheer. In a cold sweat, it was all Asami could do to hug her and calm her. To let the girl shake into her shoulder. But Korra had never let herself cry… at least not on Asami. A few lone tears, but never once had she let herself break free.

_Was I greedy to think that the next time we saw each other it would be you spinning me around with a hug, Korra?_

Asami’s hand reached out to gingerly press down on the top of the other women’s.   
  
Korra’s entire body lunged as she awakened with a gasp, Asami barely managed to jerk back, sliding nearly onto the floor as the avatar lashed out. No elements, just an empty fist, but Asami saw the fire literally burning behind her teeth, and stared at the crazed blue eyes that looked at her, glazed without recognition… Before they slowly dulled.   
  
“…Asami…”  
  
Asami’s chest tightened as she said her name, “…Korra.” She let out a deep breath, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake yo—“   
  
Korra’s hand waved nonchalantly, trying to brush off the incident, “No, no… I—I was dreaming anyway—I—I shouldn’t have lashed out.”

It had crushed Asami before to see Korra like this, so easily shaken, her voice trembling with a pain that Asami both knew and didn’t recognize in the face of her father, and it still broke her now as she slowly eased herself back into her spot on the bed.   
  
“You know I don’t mind—“  
  
“I couldn’t stop her, Asami.”   
  
Korra’s hand raised up to press against her mouth, blue eyes that watered and magnified to color blinking repeatedly and she looked at Asami, and just like that the other woman knew that coming here had not been a mistake.   
  
“That’s okay, Korra.” And even as the avatar started to shake her head, Asami reached out and took her shoulders, pulling her towards her. Stronger arms wrapped around the other womans chest, and Korra’s head buried into her chest. Her voice shook, but as always she didn’t break down. She didn’t cry like Asami expected, because Asami knew that was what she would do.   
  
“…Lousy avatar I am.”  
  
Asami couldn’t help letting out a soft exhale, a soft laugh that filled the quiet and dim room, “A phenomenal avatar. An  _amazing_  avatar.  _My_  avatar, always stepping up to protect when you don’t have to. You did more than enough.”   
  
Then, to the surprise of Asami, Korra finally let out that soft exhale. The softest, most restrained sob that the woman had ever heard, but Asami drew her hand down the back of Korra’s hair as the avatar began to shake.   
  
“You’re as amazing as ever, Korra.” 


End file.
